The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-02-04
NOT A DELUSION,
Sermon by Rev. r. De Witt Tai
mage, .. d
How Millions OF the Human Race Have
Been " Deluded" Into Better Lives
and Brighter Hopes-A Few
Notable Examples.

Notable Examples.
BRooK1YN, n. 2, Jan. SO.-''Is the Chris
tian Religion a Cheat7' was the subject OF
DR.. TaImage's sermon this morning. He
took for his text part of the twenty-hrss
( verse of the twenty-frst chapter of Ezekiel?
''He made his arrows bright, he consulted
/ with images, he looked in the liver" The
sermon Tas IS follows:
Two nodes Of aiyination- by which the
King Of Babylon proposed TO hnd out the will
Of God: He took d bundle Of aFFows, put
them together, mixed them up, theft Pal ked
forth one, and by the inscription on 1t de-
cided which city he should first assaults
Then an animal was slain, and by the
fighter or darker color of the liver the
brighter or darker prospect of success was
inferred That is the meaning of the text: !:
90 He made his arrows bright, he consulted
with images, he looked in the liver"
Stupid delusionl And yet all the ages
have been filed with delusions. It seems
as if the world loves to be hoodwinked; !;
: the delusion of the text is only q spee3men
Of a vast number Of deceits practiced upon
| the human race.
In the latter part of the last century Jo-
hanna Southcote came forth pretending to
| have Divine power, made prophesies, had
| chapels built il het honor end one hundred
| thousand disciples came forth TO. follow
Q6Es ABOUT nF0 years D61OE6 JL6 w O4
! Christ ApouOnIus was born, and he canS
| forth, and after five years being speechless,
according to the tfaditiont he healed the
sick and raised the dead, and preached Writ
ue, and, according to the myth, having
| deceased, was brought to resurrection
The Delphic Oracle deceived vast null
titudes of people-oke PEthoness, seated in
the temple of Appolo, uttering q crazy
| iargon from which the people guessed or
misguessed their Individual or national
fortunes or misfortunes. The utterances
| were of such nature that you could read
them any way you wanted to read them. A
| General, going forth to bHttlej consulted
the Delphic Oracle, and he wanted to and
put Whether he was going to be safe IN the
battle or killed ft the battle; and the
answer came forth from the Delphio
Oracle in such words that, if you put the
comma before the word never" it means
one thing, and if you put the comma after
the word never" 1t means another thing
| Just opposite. The message from the
! Belphic Oracle to the General was: "Go
forth, return never in battle shalt thou
| perish. - If he was Filled, that was ac-
| cordlng to the Delphic Oracle; il hs came
| nome safely, that was according to the
! DeIphic Oracle
| So the ancient auguries deceived the peo-
| pie. The priests of those auguries, by the
! fight of birds, or by the intonation of thun-
/ Ger, or Dy inc INSIDE appearances OA B4alu
animals, told the fortunes or misfott times
! of individuals or nations. The sibyls de-
/ ceived the people. The sibyls were sup
| posed to be inspired women Whe lived IN
/ caves and who wrote the sibyIline books,
afterwards purchased by Tarquin the
| Proud. So late ss the year 1929 man
! arose in New York, pretending to be a Di-
! vine being, and played his part so well
| that wealthy merchants became his disci-
! pies and threw their fortunes into his dis
/ cipleship.
And so in all ages there. have been NEGRO
tnanCies; ineantations, witcherafts, sOrcer-
! les, magical arts, enchantments, divina'
tions and deIusions. The one Of the
/ text was only a specimen of that which
| has been transpiring in all ages of the
world. None of these de1usiohs ses6m-
! plished any good; they deceived they
! pauperized the people, they were as cruel
as they were absurd; they opened no hos
/ pitfalls, they healed no wounds, they wiped
I away ne tears, they emancipated no serf-
dom;
! But there are those who say that all these
delusions combined are as nothing com
pared with the delusion now abroad IN the
49orld-the delusiou of the Christian re-
1tgion. That deIuslon has to-day two hum
dred million dupes. It proposes to encirble
the earth with its girdIe. That Whioh has
been called a delusion has already over
J SudoOW60 b1O Appd4dtLlldA L&usO Oh bAAAS
! side Of the sea, and it has overshadowed
the Bal kan and Caucasian ranges on the
other side the sea; It has - con
: quered England and the United
States This champion delusion, this
hoax, this swindle of the ages, as 1t has
been called, has gone forth to conquer the
islands of the Pacific; the Melanasia and
the Micronesia and Malayan Polynesia
have already surrendered to the delusion.
| Yea, 1t has conquered the Indiap archis
! pelago, and BOrneo, and Sumatra, and
Celebes and Java have fallen Under its
wiles. In the Fiji Islands, where there are
100, 900 people, 100000 have already beconfa
the dupes of this Christian religion; and if
things go on as they are now going on; and
if the influence of this great hallucination
of the ages can not be stopped, it will
swallow the globe.
Supposing, then, that Christianity is the
aelusion of the centuries, as some have
pronounced it, propose this morning to
show you what has been accomplished by
this chimera, this fallacy, this hoax this
sWindle of the ages.
In the first place, I remark that this de-
fusion of the Christian religion has made
wonderful transformations of human char
Acter 1 will go down the aisle Of any
church in Christendom, and / will find on
either side that aisle those who were once
profigate, profane, unclean of speech and
unclean of action, drunken and lost. But
by the power of this deIusion of the Chris
tian religion they have been completely
transformed, and now they are kind and
Rmiable, and genial and loving, and useful.
Everybody sees the change. Under the
power of this great hallucination they have
quit their former associates, and
whereas they once found their chief de-
light among those who gambled and sWore,
and raced horses, now they find their
chief joy among those who 90 to prayer
meetings and churches, so complete is this
delusion. Yea, their own families have
noticed it; the wife has noticed It.; the
children have noticed it. The money that
went for rum, now goes for books and for
clothes and for education. He is a new
man; all who know him say there has
been q wonderful change. What is the
cause of this changel This great hallu-
cination of the Christian religion. There
Is as much difference between what he is
now and what he once was as between a
rose and nettle, as between dove and a
vulture, as between day and night
Tremendous delusion.
Admiral Farragut, one Of the most ad-
mired men Of the American navy, early
became a victim Of this Christian dslusion,
and seated, not long before his death, at
Long Branch, he was giving some friends
an account of his early life. He said:
''My father went down in behalf Of the United
States Government to put end to Aaron
Burrs rebellion was cabiR-boy and went
along with him could swear like an old salt:
could gamble In every style OF gambling;
/ knew all the wickedness there was at that
time abroad One day my father cleared every
( body out Of the cabin except myself and locked
the doors. He said: David what are you go
ing 70 dof What are you going TO beP Wen
said, father, am going to follow the sea-
Follow the sea- and be poor, miserable,
drunken sailor, kicked and cuf7ed about
the world and die of fever in foreign hos
pitalY oh. no. I said father I will
not be that; I will tread the quarter
: deck and command- aa Won Do, NJ na.-La